COUGHING GOATS: A FIELD REPORT NOBODY ASKED FOR
We went looking for tranquillity in the countryside. Instead, we found goats apparently attempting to cough their own heads off. Welcome to another completely serious NIX DRONES field report.
There Are Moments in the Outdoors You Never Forget
A spectacular sunset.
Mist rolling silently through a valley.
That first glimpse of a mountain after hours on the trail.
And then there is standing beside a fence while a goat looks directly into your soul and goes:
HUUUURRRRKKK.
This article concerns the latter.
Goats, it turns out, possess an extraordinary ability to look simultaneously majestic, bewildered and as though they've swallowed a small garden tool.
And when somebody points a camera at them at precisely the right moment, things get considerably worse.
The Anatomy of a Goat Cough
Phase One: Suspicion
The goat stops chewing.
This is your first warning.
Its eyes narrow slightly. The ears rotate into what we can only assume is the livestock equivalent of diagnostic mode.
Something is happening.
You don't yet know what.
Neither does the goat.
Phase Two: The Wind-Up
The neck extends.
The mouth begins to open.
Nearby goats instinctively reconsider their position.
The photographer, meanwhile, sees an opportunity and starts hammering the shutter button like a wildlife professional documenting an exceptionally rare event.
Phase Three: Deployment
COUGH.
Or sneeze.
Or bleat.
Or possibly some uniquely caprine combination of all three.
Whatever comes out sounds substantially larger than the animal responsible for producing it.
There is then a short silence.
The goat looks at you.
You look at the goat.
Nobody mentions what happened.
Goats Have Absolutely No Interest in Looking Cool
This is perhaps their greatest quality.
A stag standing on a ridge somehow knows there is a camera nearby.
An eagle will arrange itself magnificently against the sunset.
Even sheep can occasionally produce something approaching pastoral elegance.
Goats?
No.
A goat will wait patiently until you've selected your aperture, composed the background and achieved beautiful golden-hour light.
Then it'll stick its tongue out.
Or cough.
Or attempt to eat your camera strap.
Sometimes all three.
And somehow, that's the photograph you keep.
Is the Goat Actually Coughing?
Possibly.
Our photographic search also turned up goats sneezing, shouting and producing noises sufficiently human-like to have become internet entertainment.
For the purposes of this highly scientific investigation, however, we shall classify the photographs using the internationally recognised NIX DRONES Rural Noise Scale:
Mouth open + ridiculous expression + unexplained farmyard noise = coughing goat.
Peer review is not invited.
The Countryside Is Better Because It's Ridiculous
Perhaps that's the real reason these photographs work.
Outdoor photography often chases perfection: perfect weather, perfect light, perfect composition.
But adventures aren't really like that.
They're muddy boots.
Wrong turns.
Rain arriving precisely five minutes after you've packed the waterproofs away.
They're sandwiches eaten behind a stone wall because the wind has become unreasonable.
And occasionally they're a goat producing a noise like an elderly Land Rover attempting to start on a January morning.
Those moments deserve photographs too.
Possibly more than the perfect ones.
Final Diagnosis
After extensive observation, several photographs and absolutely no veterinary qualifications whatsoever, the NIX DRONES conclusion is clear:
Goats are inherently funny.
They don't need costumes.
They don't need captions.
They barely need photographers.
You simply provide a field, a camera and sufficient patience.
Eventually one of them will do something completely idiotic.
And when it does?
Keep the shutter firing.
Because somewhere between the landscapes, drones, roads and trails, adventure occasionally looks less like an epic expedition…
…and more like a goat trying to cough up Tuesday.